Childhood

“Blessed be childhood…” said Swiss 19th Century philosopher, Henri Frederic Amiel. Childhood, he asserted, “brings down something of heaven into the midst of our fatherly earthliness.”

Many of the teachers we work with in South Africa, constantly remind us just how many roles they have to play in the lives of the learners who come through the classroom door, morning by morning, day after day. These young lives have often been adversely affected by brutal odds and unsettling realities. They hardly seem to have anything resembling Amiel’s “something of heaven”.